By Pat Murphy​

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Well, Lourdes Pilgrimage 2026 all over for another year. What a wonderful week! It was hot, it was prayerful, it was busy, and it was great to see both familiar faces and new ones. To chat with folk like old friends who I only see once a year. To ask Our Blessed Lady for my own petitions and those I carried with me. 

With the feast of Our Lady’s birthday this month, it seems appropriate to tell this tale – a true story. 

An elderly lady I had known for many years had a great devotion to Our Blessed Lady. She had been to Lourdes and other Marian shrines in her earlier life. I suggested to her that, as she had just celebrated her 90th birthday, she should come to Lourdes with the pilgrimage as an assisted pilgrim. 

She was delighted at the suggestion, but felt there were many people more needy than she was. I did mention to her failing sight and hearing, lack of mobility, and other health problems. So – Lourdes was booked. Even the taxi to the airport was booked about three months in advance. Up until a couple of days before the pilgrimage, she would phone me and ask if she was taking the place of someone more in need, I would assure her that Our Lady (not me) had invited her on the pilgrimage that year.

 
She had a wonderful pilgrimage, doing as much as she could. Everyone was a friend she didn’t know she had. The cafes, the shops, the whole Lourdes experience. She embraced everything with a renewed energy and enthusiasm: the young people pushing her around in a wheelchair, the Masses, the services, the Grotto, and of course the torchlight procession. 

A few weeks later, on 8 September, I was in the studio of a local radio station, taking part in a late-night programme. There was a phone-in request, asking for ‘Ave Maria’ to be played as it was the caller’s Mother’s birthday. I knew exactly who the call was from, and who her Mother was! The year before, she had phoned the radio station, and said as it was Our Lady’s birthday could they play Ave Maria? The station apologised but could not take a request with a religious connotation. However, a request for “my Mother’s birthday” the following year was not a problem. We had over three glorious minutes of Pavarotti singing Schubert’s version of the prayer. 

She told me anything she asked Our Lady for, her prayers were answered – maybe not straight away, but the miracles kept happening. Even for a request on the radio – another little miracle from her pilgrimage to Lourdes. A few months later, she left us to meet her heavenly Mother and her son. I am delighted I played my part that year in encouraging her to come on her last pilgrimage, and I always say a little prayer for her when I hear that beautiful aria.